Battle of Austerlitz

The Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805) was a major battle of the Napoleonic Wars that occurred when the 66,800-strong French army under Emperor Napoleon I decisively defeated a combined Austrian-Russian army of 85,400 troops under emperors Alexander I of Russia and Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor at Austerlitz in Moravia (now Slavkov u Brna, Czech Republic). Following the fall of Vienna, the Austrians decided to withdraw from battle until they could meet up with the Russian army of Czar Alexander, and the combined Allied army decided to seek an encounter with Napoleon's smaller army. Napoleon decided to deceive the Allies into engaging him at Austerlitz, giving orders for his army to withdraw from the strategic Pratzen Heights. His right flank at Telnitz was deceptively smaller than the rest of his army, luring the Russians into advancing from the heights to attack that force as the bulk of his army, including Mamelukes from Egypt, assaulted Pratzen Heights. Marshal Jean-de-Dieu Soult and his IV Corps ferociously assaulted the Pratzen Heights as the Russian advance weakened its defenses, and the demolition of the Allied center allowed for French troops to advance on both flanks and net 20,000 prisoners. The French won a decisive victory, suffering 9,000 losses, while the defeated Austrians and Russians suffered 36,000 losses. The French victory at Austerlitz led to the 26 December 1805 Treaty of Pressburg, which would make peace with the Austrians, dissolve the Holy Roman Empire once and for all, and force the Austrians to pay a large indemnity. With Russia's armies withdrawing and the war in Central Europe at an end, the War of the Third Coalition was, for all intensive purposes, over.